


Two Idiots and a Baby

by ObscureReference



Series: Two Idiots and a Baby [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Babysitting, Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9089791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: “So, what, we’re on baby duty today?” Prompto said. In his arms, Talcott giggled. Gladio glanced over at them. “Great,” he drawled. “He’s awake.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been clawing at me since I finished the game, and here it is. Talcott is aged down here because I needed a baby. 
> 
> Feel free to correct any mistakes you see!

“Gladdy! You promised!”

“No,” Gladio stressed, poking his sister in the chest. “ _You_ promised to babysit. I had no part in this.”

“But you promised you’d always take care of me!” Iris protested. The baby in her arms squirmed, and if this conversation didn’t end very soon, Gladio was afraid it would wake up.

He stood his ground. “This isn’t a life or death situation, sis. This is my day one day off in a month—“ Not to mention his first day off in forever that aligned with Prompto’s schedule as well. “—And I’m not spending it watching some kid. Just bring him into work with you.”

Iris scowled. “The hospital isn’t any place for a baby!”

“Why not? Kids are born there all the time.”

“Talcott’s not a newborn! I can’t just carry him around all day! I have a job to do! Please, Gladdy, I know I promised, but I got called in last minute. I _can’t_ take him in. And you know Jared has trouble watching over Talcott by himself.”

Gladio wavered. He could see the moment Iris thought she almost had him, and he shook it off.

If Jared had asked him to watch Talcott, then he absolutely would have. Jared had done enough for the Amicitia family that Gladio had no problem returning the favor– _if_ he’d been asked earlier. But not today. Today he was tired, he’d had no prior notice, and he didn’t know anything about babies.

“You got yourself into this mess,” Gladio said. He left the rest of the saying unfished.

Iris sighed. “My shift starts in twenty minutes. Everything you need is in the bag. I don’t have anyone else—“

Somebody yawned behind Gladio. “Hey, Iris. What’s up? Is that Talcott?”

Gladio whirled. Prompto stood just over his shoulder, an old, stained pair of sweatpants barely clinging to his hips. He was shirtless and rubbing the sleep from his eye. He was still sporting major beadhead.

The moment he caught sight of his boyfriend, Gladio knew he was doomed.

Iris’ face shifted a fraction of a second before she made her move, and despite his years of fighting experience, Gladio was helpless to stop his sister from shoving Talcott into Prompto’s arms.

“Whoa!” Prompto instinctively wrapped his arms around the six-month-old as Iris stepped uncomfortably close, sidestepping Gladio all together. “Hey, are you—What?”

Prompto was completely confused, and that gave the opportunity for Iris to drop the baby bag at their feet. Gladio was so far off his game today that he knew he’d be hearing all about it again later from both of them. In the end, he gave up, allowing Iris to sweep past him again and back towards her car.

“Thanks, Gladdy, I owe you one!” she called over her shoulder, digging the keys out of her pocket. She was grinning devilishly. “Love to stay and chat, but I’m going to be late! I have the car seat, so don’t think you can get away with driving anywhere! Love you!”

Gladio watched her drive away. Prompto shifted the baby in his arms, dumbstruck. By some miracle, he was holding Talcott correctly.

“So, what, we’re on baby duty today?” Prompto said. In his arms, Talcott giggled. Gladio glanced over at them.

“Great,” he drawled. “He’s awake.”

Talcott gurgled. He smelled like baby powder. At least Iris had changed him before coming over.

Prompto adjusted Talcott. Again. Of course he was the fidgety type. Gladio sighed and held out his arms to take Talcott.

“Come on, give him here,” Gladio said, resigned. He was in no way in the mood to take care of a baby today, but he _definitely_ wasn’t in the mood to take care of a _crying_ baby because the person holding him couldn’t stop squirming.

Surprisingly, Prompto took a step back.

“Nuh-uh,” he said. “You look ready to pass out, man. Let me take care of him.”

Prompto. With a baby. There had never been a worse idea.

“Just hand him over,” Gladio said. He made a “Give me” motion with his fingers, but Prompto shook his head.

“Five minutes ago you were complaining that whoever was at the door had better have a good reason for showing up this early,” Prompto said. “Because you needed, and I quote, ‘at least twenty more hours of sleep and a fucking break.’ So go lay down. Let me watch him.”

“You’ve never babysat before,” Gladio pointed out.

Prompto shrugged.  “Yeah, but you were up all night.” He smiled. “Go lay down. I can take care of him.”

Gladio skeptically raised an eyebrow. It was true that he was tired, but…

“You sure?” he asked. He imagined falling asleep only to wake up to both Prompto and the baby crying, the house ablaze. He could picture it perfectly. But Prompto waved him off.

“Yeah, no problem. I’ll just search the web for anything I don’t know.” Prompto gestured to his phone, which was charging on the far table.

On any other occasion, with the “I’ll trust the internet” mentality as their safety net, Gladio would have protested a lot more. But it was true he was exhausted and in no condition to put up a decent fight. He had spent the last two days revamping security at the company with Ignis and Noct, and he was running on empty.

“Or, you know, I’ll call Ignis,” Prompto continued. It was a slightly more comforting statement, but Gladio shook his head.

“Nah,” he said. “He and Noct are busy today. Leave ‘em be.”

“Gotcha! Internet it is then.”

Gladio shook his head. Ramuh help them all.

He tiredly climbed the stairs to their shared bedroom and flopped onto the bed. He was out instantly.

 

 

 

 

Gladio opened his eyes.

He didn’t _want_ to be awake. He very much wanted to be sleeping, in fact. _Desperately_ wanted to be sleeping. But the digital clock on the table said it had been two hours since he had laid down, and he couldn’t remember hearing a peep from downstairs within that time, despite the fact that he’d left the door propped open. The silence was eerie.

Gladio groaned and rolled over. It was time to see if he needed to call the fire department.

The stairs loudly squeaked under his feet, despite the fact he was actually trying to tread lightly. The excessive noise made his scowl. He ignored it and tried to focus on the rest of the house instead. When he reached the bottom step, he finally heard Prompto’s voice drifting from the living room, as well as the jingle of dumb baby toys.

“You’re teething!” Prompto exclaimed, his voice sugary and sweet and incredibly baby appropriate. Gladio blinked. “How does that feel, buddy? Pretty good, right? Don’t worry, I’m sure your teeth will come in no time!”

When Gladio rounded into the living room, Prompto’s back was to him, so he leaned against the doorway and observed. Talcott had been laid out on his stomach on a blanket, a few colorful toy blocks and other such toys scattered around him. He had picked up a red ring and stuffed it in his mouth. He blinked up curiously at Prompto, who sat in front of him, smiling as wide as could be.

Prompto pointed at the plastic ring in Talcott’s mouth.

“Do you like that? It’s red. It’s a red ring. Do you like colors yet? Red is a good color. I sure do have absolutely nothing to say!”

A string of drool dripped down Talcott’s chin. Prompto wiped it away with a dishrag he kept by his knee.

“These forums said it’s good to keep a running commentary so you can learn to speak faster, so I’m just going to keep talking even though I ran out of words an hour ago! I wonder if Gladio is sleeping well? Do you think so? I wonder when if we woke him up when—“

Talcott smacked his palm against the carpet. “Ba, ba! Maaa!“

“Yep! Those sure are sounds!”

Gladio felt the corners of his mouth pull into a smile. He was still dead tired, but there was a warmth blooming in his chest that hadn’t been there before. Apparently letting Prompto watch the kid hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

Something must have given him away because Prompto turned around, smiling. “Hey! What’s up, big guy? Shouldn’t you still be sleeping?”

“Woke up,” Gladio said, his voice still a little thick with sleep. “Figured I should make sure you didn’t break each other yet.”

“Gee, thanks for the faith.”

“Anytime.”

A beat passed between them as Talcott made several wet sounds. Gladio eyed him. “Everything been smooth so far?”

“Ah, well, you know.” Prompto brushed a lock of hair out of his face. For a guy so usually vain about his appearance, it was rare to see him even touch his hair without a mirror. “I will admit there was a _tiny_ incident with breakfast, but I fixed it, no worries.” He peered at Gladio curiously. “Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t wake up. We made a lot of noise.”

“Did you break anything?”

Prompto winced. “I’ll fix it later.”

Whatever ‘it’ was, it wasn’t his problem now. Gladio resolved not to go into the kitchen for a while.

Gladio squinted. There was a suspicious new stain on Prompto’s sweatpants.

Talcott spat out the ring. He pressed his palms against the blanket like he was preparing to crawl and pushed himself maybe an inch off the ground. Then he fell back down. He made no effort to move again.

“You get an A for effort,” Prompto said.

“And F for execution,” Gladio added.

Prompto shrugged. “He’ll get there.”

“Eventually.” Gladio shoved himself off the doorway and sat down next to Prompto on the carpet, ignoring Prompto’s confused look. Their shoulders brushed, and Prompto leaned into his touch. “Have you changed his diaper yet?”

“Not yet,” Prompto said. “Aren’t you still tired?”

“Nah,” Gladio lied. “I’m fine. Besides, I’m up now anyway. Might as well keep you and the kid company.”

As if on cue, Talcott’s face scrunched up. He whimpered.

“Oh, jeez,” Prompto said, just as Talcott began to wail. Talcott’s face immediately grew red, his eyes watery. He was incredibly ugly, as all babies were. “In that case, _you_ can change his diaper.”

Gladio knew this was coming. He rolled his eyes anyway. “Haven’t you ever changed a diaper before? It’ll be good experience for you.”

Prompto was already scooping Talcott into his arms and shoving him Gladio’s way. “No, thank you. Here you go.”

Gladio took Talcott without protest, careful to avoid touching his soiled diaper too much.

“Are you sure?” he teased. “You’ve been taking care of him for a while now. What’s one diaper change?”

“Yep, I sure have! And because I’ve been working so hard and because you’re feeling so refreshed, _you_ can take care of him now. I’m on a five minute pee break.”

They both climbed to their feet, and Prompto immediately darted toward the bathroom.

“Seriously?” Gladio called after him. “You were just holding it this whole time?”

“I didn’t want him to watch me pee!”

Because Prompto couldn’t just leave him on the floor for two seconds while he hopped into the bathroom. Of course. Gladio fondly shook his head and searched for the baby bag, all while Talcott screamed in his arms.

When the soiled diaper was disposed of and Gladio had rocked Talcott into something resembling tranquility, Prompto reappeared.

“You’re really good with him, aren’t you?” Prompto said. Gladio could hear the real question underneath.

“Iris and I grew up around a lot of kids,” Gladio explained. “You get used to it.” That, and they got roped into a lot of babysitting for family friends.

“Huh,” Prompto said. “Must have been nice.”

Right. Prompto had grown up an only child and had been mostly alone for a vast majority of his childhood. Gladio frowned.

“Here, take him.” He foisted Talcott off on Prompto, placing a quick kiss on Prompto’s cheek as he did. “He’s probably going to get fussy soon. I’ll get something ready.”

Talcott buried his face into Prompto’s collarbone. Prompto raised his hand to support Talcott’s head. “Gotcha.”

Gladio placed the baby bag on the counter and rummaged around, sneaking peeks at Prompto and Talcott as he did. Prompto was distracted, too caught up in Talcott’s wriggling to pay Gladio any mind. There was something soft about the way the light hit them, the way Talcott babbled with happiness as Prompto rubbed their noses together. The sight made Gladio’s heart burst with warmth.

“You almost got it, big guy?” Prompto asked without looking up. “I think the little guy’s getting grumpy.”

 _Big guy_ and _little guy_. Gladio wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It did weird things to his stomach. Weird, but pleasant.

He pulled out a jar of baby food at random. It seemed good enough. He took an extra moment to steal another glance at his boyfriend.

This time Prompto looked up at him. “Gladio?”

Gladio waved the jar.

“I heard you. Come on, Iris didn’t leave a chair. Hold him in your lap while I feed him.”

“Got it!”

Talcott giggled.  

**Author's Note:**

> Prompto might be a bit more mature in this au than usual, but we'll chalk that up to au differences. I imagine if someone actually tried to hand a baby off to him in-game, he would try to give it back immediately (though he might still coo and take pics). 
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/)


End file.
